The age of criminal responsibility acts as the gateway to the criminal justice system – under a certain age you are kept out.
Most jurisdictions have this age barrier because it’s widely understood children…
Finally children's rights will be represented at the national level in Australia.
Flickr/vastateparksstaff
A national Children’s Commissioner to champion the rights of Australia’s young people was announced last week by the Gillard government.
The long overdue announcement is a welcome development and should…
The tax transfer system does not treat all families equally.
Sean Dreilinger
Most of the reforms proposed by the Henry Tax Review appear to have died a quiet death. In his recent article on inequality in The Monthly, Treasurer Wayne Swan does not mention the Henry Review at all…
Removing barriers to adoption is risky.
Flickr/vavva
The release last Wednesday of the Senate’s Community Affairs Committee report on forced adoption resulted in almost unanimous condemnation of past adoption practices which saw young, unmarried women…
Convicted murderer Keli Lane is one of Australia's most famous cases of infanticide.
AAP Image/Dean Lewins
In December 2010, Keli Lane, a former champion water polo player, was convicted of the 1996 murder of her two day old daughter, Tegan. The new-born girl was never seen again after leaving the hospital…
Children remember advertisements and, more often than not, they want what they see.
Dimitris Papazimouris
The impact of junk food advertising on childhood obesity is a topic often debated in the media. One side calls for banning junk food advertising during children’s television viewing times while the other…
Quality relationships and time spent together is what's important when it comes to children's wellbeing.
Flickr/disgustipado
The media often blame a lot of society’s problems on the break down of traditional family structures and the increase in single parent homes.
When fathers no longer live at home, policy makers focus on…
Are hormone therapies the answer to transgendered children?
Flickr/PhotoComiX
The practice of eugenics is returning to contemporary Australia in the treatment of transgendered children.
With the cooperation of the Family Court, children as young as ten are being put on puberty…
ABC's The Slap investigates the complex and very personal views of those at the heart of a smacking case.
ABC
In last night’s ABC program, The Slap, an impulsive slap changed everything. A man struck someone else’s child at a barbecue provoking a legal challenge. In real life, that would be an assault, though…
A year four slump can be avoided if children are given the tools to read when very young.
Flickr/Éole
Human speech has long been present in every culture, and our brains have evolved specialized features to enable its rapid development when we are exposed to the speech of others. Reading however is a relatively…
Helping children recognise the sounds in words can improve their reading ability.
Pratham Books/Flickr
There are two main approaches to teaching children to read. Phonics, involves teaching children to recognise combinations of characters and establish the meanings of words based on combining them. The…
